Review: ‘Mary Queen of Scots’ brings life to British monarchy tussle

‘Mary Queen of Scots’ tells true tale of monarchy tussle

This image released by Focus Features shows Saoirse Ronan as Mary Stuart in a scene from “Mary Queen of Scots.”

This image released by Focus Features shows Saoirse Ronan as Mary Stuart in a scene from “Mary Queen of Scots.”

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Liam Daniel/Focus Features Via AP

Photo:

Liam Daniel/Focus Features Via AP

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This image released by Focus Features shows Saoirse Ronan as Mary Stuart in a scene from “Mary Queen of Scots.”

This image released by Focus Features shows Saoirse Ronan as Mary Stuart in a scene from “Mary Queen of Scots.”

Photo:

Liam Daniel/Focus Features Via AP

Review: ‘Mary Queen of Scots’ brings life to British monarchy tussle

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A familial thread wove through my merry week of movie-going.

On Wednesday, I jumped into a 3D showing of “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse,” a show I wasn’t itching to see, in order to judge its suitability for my brother to take my niece, his oldest, to see it. She has about as many years as fingers on a hand, but she’s obsessed with our web-slinging hero.

Do you take a child that young to see a Marvel adventure? Turn to Uncle Rob for the answer (yes, he decided). The animation is amazing. The music pops. The content is stylized and “violence-lite” for a PG comics romp. She can handle it, I cautioned him, and there are no alligators (she’d never forgive me). It’s also got something positive to say about female empowerment.

The next day I went to see “Mary Poppins Returns” with my sister’s family and some of her in-laws in the new Dolby Cinema auditorium here at the Edwardsville multiplex. Two more nieces tell me that nothing beats a cozy flick (or nap) in a soft reclining seat and I agree wholeheartedly. Emily Blunt cracks wryly through a late sequel that, honestly, reminds me soundly of the original, though with less kiddie enthusiasm that I can muster for the Julie Andrews Oscar winner. It’s quaint and cute and nice. Also sadly forgettable, especially the musical numbers.

The third and final picture I saw this week is one built on family dynamics run amok through legendary power-brokering and assassination. It’s the story of “Mary Queen of Scots,” a history lesson that is no less than a stirring inspiration for an epic such as “Game of Thrones” — sans dragons — but all the better for having been a series of real-life events.

Two of the most in-demand actresses working today bring fiery life to Mary Stuart (Saoirse Ronan) and Elizabeth I (Margot Robbie), cousins and queen regents of lands long governed by lesser men. Together, respectively, they ruled Scotland and England. Separately, each demanded more of the other than they themselves could return in kind. Their Catholic and Protestant faiths were at odds. It pulled their trajectories into each other’s orbits and it did not end well for both of them. David Tennant plays a damnation-spouting cleric that is rather a Greek chorus for the movie.

Upon her return to Scotland in the mid-sixteenth Century, Mary asserted her rights as Queen of Scotland and rightful heir to the English throne, something her husband-less, heir-less cousin and her myriad of ambassadors (Adrian Lester) and advisors (Guy Pearce, Brendan Coyle) refused to acknowledge. Through a lengthy correspondence and at the behest of envoys, Mary acquiesces to Elizabeth’s suggestions of marriage (first to Jack Lowden’s Lord Darnley, and later to Martin Compston’s Earl of Bothwell, one of my favorite characters). Some protracted moves of armies and churches, posturing of state-sponsored murder, and attacking the credibility of the Scottish queen through innuendo and rumor-mongering soon follows.

It’s after a long (and dull) first hour and a half that the queens finally meet in person, face to powder-caked face, in order to hash out their laundry list of grievances. Ronan is a vision in her pursuit of what she considers her destiny. It gives passion to her performance. Robbie’s acting is more internal and cerebral, but great care must be taken to avoid thinking of it as subdued. Though this meeting never took place in antiquity, it makes for a splendid creative choice by rookie director (and live theatre veteran) Josie Rourke that, for me, turned the movie in the best direction by show’s end. The history of the British monarchy, man, it’s wild.

“Mary Queen of Scots” runs 124 minutes and is rated R for some violence and sexuality. I give this film three stars out of four.